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Taiwanese banking regulators, as expected, have approved the first bank to issue mobile credit cards that could be downloaded over the air to SIM cards.

Five banks in Taiwan are expected to receive approval from regulators by next month that would allow them to issue mobile credit cards that could be downloaded over the air to SIM cards in NFC phones.

Merchant locations accepting PayPass cards and applications on mobile devices stood at nearly 700,000 globally at the end of 2012, MasterCard Worldwide announced this week.

Taiwan’s Fair Trade Commission has approved a joint venture among Taiwan’s five mobile operators and its major contactless payments service provider, EasyCard Corp., to build an NFC payments platform, but with conditions.

Transactions with Visa payWave cards in Taiwan grew by 19% during the third quarter with spending up by 23%, according to Visa’s country office in Taiwan.

The 10-year anniversary of the official birth of NFC came and went quietly on Sept. 5, 2012.

Japan’s largest telco, NTT DoCoMo, has begun to make a key piece of its strategy for NFC known, announcing deals with MasterCard Worldwide and South Korea’s KT Corp. to enable subscribers to make payments when they roam in other countries.

Chunghwa Telecom’s NFC wallet trial will test two payment applications and a Chunghwa T

Taiwan’s largest mobile operator, Chunghwa Telecom is expected to announce the launch of an NFC wallet pilot Monday, with plans to test two payment applications stored on NFC SIMs and running in a trio of high-end Android phones.

Giesecke & Devrient Secure Flash Solutions has announced a trial launched last month in Taiwan by Cathay United Bank of mobile payment applications running on microSD cards in full NFC phones.